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onpolitics.usatoday.com
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NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. - Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, the most focused on national security of the potential 2016 field, said Friday that the administration's "Obama-Clinton" foreign policy means "our allies no longer trust us and our enemies no longer fear us.'' Rubio said it was his fifth appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference, but his first as a potential presidential candidate.

onpolitics.usatoday.com
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Don't call him short-tempered or hot-headed. Call him "passionate." That's how New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie described himself before a full house of conservative activists at the CPAC gathering Tuesday, when conservative talk-show host Laura Ingraham read off a list of the unflattering adjectives sometimes applied to Christie.

usatoday.com
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A gaggle of potential Republican presidential candidates will pitch their 2016 credentials this week at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, but they'll find a new wrinkle at the best-known of GOP cattle calls. Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie and others will for the first time have to answer questions from the audience, made up of the GOP's most conservative and libertarian activists.

onpolitics.usatoday.com
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Could this be a clue to Hillary Clinton's 2016 platform? If there is one? On Thursday, the same day Philadelphia won the Democrats' next presidential nominating convention, Mayor Michael Nutter signed into law a paid sick leave bill. And guess who likes it: Clinton tweeted her approval today.

onpolitics.usatoday.com
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Time was, presidents goofed around in videos and only the gang at the White House Correspondents Association dinner ever saw them. But now, all you need is Facebook and there's President Obama faking jump shots and sticking out his tongue in a video for Healthcare.gov called "Things Everybody Does but Doesn't Talk About."

onpolitics.usatoday.com
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Sen. Rand Paul, with an eye on running for president, is asking Kentucky Republicans to swap the state's presidential primary for a caucus instead. The Lexington Herald-Leader reports Paul sent a letter Feb. 9 to the state Republican committee asking for the change.

onpolitics.usatoday.com
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House Speaker John Boehner boiled over Wednesday when he suggested Senate Democrats "get off their ass" and stop blocking a $40 billion Homeland Security bill that would derail President Obama's immigration programs. While the conversational mode of Capitol Hill is generally decorous - members of the opposite party are still referred to as "distinguished colleagues" - Boehner does sometimes let fly with language, particularly when there is a deadline closing in and he is being politically stymied.

onpolitics.usatoday.com
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Count London as the new location for tough questions to U.S. politicians, especially governors who look like they're running for president. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, on a trade mission to London, was asked whether he is comfortable with the theory of evolution. "I'm going to punt on that one as well.

onpolitics.usatoday.com
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Gavin Newsom, California's Democratic lieutenant governor, last month said he would pass on a Senate race next year to succeed retiring Sen. Barbara Boxer. Now we know why: Newsom said Wednesday he will run for governor in 2018. Newsom, 47, the former mayor of San Francisco, said on his website he is forming a committee to raise money for the campaign.